


in a place of wonder

by thebriars



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Muse - Freeform, a small hint of my prose poetry obsession, grantaire the artist, just a little drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 16:38:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20195380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebriars/pseuds/thebriars
Summary: For one glorious night, Grantaire finds his muse.





	in a place of wonder

**Author's Note:**

> title from "My Muse" by Sarah Jarosz, which is a good exr song indeed.

There was paint under Grantaire’s nails. Red and gold and green, dried in the creases of his palms and in the roughness around his calloused fingertips, a pressing reminder of how he’d spent the night.

A flush rose to his cheeks as he walked, hands buried deep in his pockets, nose tucked down into the collar of his coat, hair whipped into his eyes by the autumn winds whistling down the twisting streets of Paris. It was mornings like this that made him wish he lived somewhat closer to the Musain—less windswept cobblestones to trudge over—but at least his mind was occupied. He felt the flush deepen and he picked at the paint on his index finger with his thumb.

Grantaire swam in memories today. He bathed in a golden afterglow and hung desperately to the sharp edges of the moments seared into his heart: eyes like sapphires, watching him work from the shadows of his apartment. Copper hair glinting in the shine from the streetlight below. Delicate fingers digging into his shoulder and soft lips so terribly close to his own as Enjolras leaned over him to trace his gaze over the mess on Grantaire’s canvas. A soft voice, so different than the one Grantaire had always known, nearly reverent as it whispered words he hadn’t dared dream of hearing.

It all felt like a hallucination, something leftover from the days when Grantaire was lost amongst the cosmos of his own head and whatever back-alley substance he could get his hands on. But that was so many eons ago, and what was Grantaire and his withered mind to the man who was everything?

Grantaire reached the Musain a little later than usual.

His shift passed in a fever dream of normality. He watched the regulars come and go and thanked the stars that neither they nor Musichetta commented on the paint still clinging to his skin. The idea of scrubbing it away made his skin crawl with discomfort. To erase the evidence of last night was a sin, surely.

Grantaire bent his head down and rang up the next customer.

Colorful leaves gathered in the gutters. Eponine kept the espresso machine whirring in the background and time ticked by with rhythm and precision, little more than a carefully choreographed dance whose steps Grantaire mimicked until the clock struck two and he was free to dance as he wished again.

And still the paint remained and still he could not see anything but Enjolras.

Giddiness rose in Grantaire’s chest as he walked until he nearly choked on the emotion in his throat. He felt as though every inch of his being was full with some kind of unattainable happiness, pushed to max capacity and sure to burst at any moment. It was quite the opposite of the evening before, when Grantaire had left the meeting feeling hollow and thin. When he had tried to disappear into the night like the phantom he was, the hat Cosette had knitted him for his birthday pulled low on his forehead so that his hair fell into his eyes and hid the dark emptiness he knew was surely there.

When Enjolras had followed him out.

His cry of _“R!”_, more desperate than exasperated, as it had been before, echoed in Grantaire’s ears even now. His eyes so wide and pleading, his jacket unbuttoned, his hands unfurled by his sides, his curls falling from their tie like gold filigree, his lips ever so slightly open and his brow furrowed upwards in helplessness.

If only Enjolras knew what he _did_ to Grantaire.

A thousand _if only_s crossed Grantaire’s mind. A thousand replays and repeats and mistakes and undoings and paintings and nights alone and dreams lit in bronze and silver and blue. Grantaire was built on the _if only_s. He was made from the _maybe_s.

And now his greatest _maybe_ was a _yes_.

He took the stairs to his floor two at a time, a great unwarranted sense of anticipation rising within him. He _knew_ Enjolras had class, that there was no way he would be waiting for Grantaire in an apartment he didn’t have the key to, but the unreasonable hope that had always lived within Grantaire was not to be contained.

The door sprung open and Grantaire’s breath caught in his chest as he closed it slowly behind him, his painting—_their_ painting—propped on his easel, watching him as he hovered in the doorway, pinned beneath Enjolras’s haunting eyes and the hint of his smile.

**Author's Note:**

> well, i've finally posted some enjoltaire! it's taken me a while, but i think a shitty little one shot is an acceptable way to test the waters (insert dramatic camera pan to the mountains and mountains of les mis fic ideas floating around in my head here).
> 
> thanks for reading! let me know what you thought!


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